Boilers, Nichols eye second straight playoff appearance

Entering year two as head coach of the Kewanee High School football team, Tyler Nichols is feeling a little more at ease.

Comment

By Mike Landis

Star Courier - Kewanee, IL

By Mike Landis

Posted Aug. 11, 2014 at 8:44 PM

By Mike Landis

Posted Aug. 11, 2014 at 8:44 PM

KEWANEE

Entering year two as head coach of the Kewanee High School football team, Tyler Nichols is feeling a little more at ease.

“The kids know what we expect,” said Nichols at the conclusion of the season’s first practice Monday morning. “They know our program, they know our plays, they know our routes. Everything was a lot smoother. There was a little less teaching, but obviously it’s still back to fundamentals.”

In his first season at the helm, Nichols guided the Boilers to a 6-4 record and the program’s second playoff appearance in three years. That taste of the postseason motivates Kewanee’s 2014 squad.

“It’s big to understand being a part of a playoff team as opposed to seeing a playoff team,” said Nichols. “A few years ago when we went up and played Aurora Christian, these guys were young and weren’t a part of it. They witnessed it, but they didn’t see the hard work that went into it.”

“Now we’ve got these guys who were on our trip to Seneca last year, went through the whole year and went through the hard work,” he added. “They are leading the way. They know you can’t waste a rep out here, you have to earn everything you do and take advantage of all of your opportunities.”

Nichols bid farewell to a senior group that led Kewanee on both sides of the football last season, but believes this year’s seniors are poised to take charge.

“We definitely lost a special group of seniors — I think everybody knows that,” said Nichols. “I’m very proud of those guys, but we’ve got Austin and Alan VerVynck back, Jonah and Javion Harris are back, Matt Costenson, Raful Solano, we have Bo Walters coming back out to the program and Cody Goforth our starting quarterback right now.”

“We actually have more seniors this year. They have been stepping into that leadership role and I’ve been pleasantly surprised,” said Nichols.

Nichols said the team took a different approach to its weight room work in the summer, breaking into morning and afternoon groups.

“We split them up a little bit and had a great group in the morning and a great group in the afternoon,” said Nichols. “I think having two groups kind of took some stress off people and gave us a little more room in the weight room. They were able to get their work done quicker.”

“We had a great summer,” he added. “We don’t overdo it as far as the 7-on-7s, but the ones we did go to we were successful and learned a lot. I was very pleased.”

Page 2 of 2 - And he was really pleased with the early start date the IHSA granted high school football teams.

“We got the present from the IHSA and got to start on Monday instead of Wednesday,” said Nichols, noting last year he was leaving school at 3:30 p.m. and trying to prepare for the early-season practices.

“It felt great to be able to get here a little early and kind of get back into the regular routine,” said Nichols.